


A Hero's Welcome

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26501968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Charles' family throws him a welcome back party, but the Major isn't the one who turns everyone's head.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	A Hero's Welcome

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to L_M_Biggs for assistance with Charles' speech!

The surf pounded on a lightless shore. His blood knew the sound (he had been born with the sound of the sea in his ears, had slept, for most of his life, in tidal towns) and it made him think of the poem chosen by his graduating class, “Dover Beach.” It was a nihilistic piece for young men of privilege about to assume their place in the world. Only two lines concerned him tonight. “Ah, love let us be true / To one another!” 

In just twenty hours, his homecoming gala (unwanted, so unwanted) would begin. But two hours earlier, a train would arrive, panting its hot smoky breaths, discharging its cattle-crammed occupants. And in the crowd of briefcase-bearers and mothers herding their children would be the one, slight, lovely form he adored. In eighteen hours, Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger (so soon to have a longer appellation) would be in his arms. The forms were signed, the money moved, the family lawyers bribed to side with him, the next tier of lawyers threatened with things real and things imagined if they dared to intervene. Like Lucifer gazing on Adam in the Garden, Charles had vowed to have this; now, the red tape was thick as a cocoon. Some part of him hated that it took so much to make him feel secure, but he knew how devious his father could be; he would not lose Max, slender as he was, through something so small as a legal loophole. 

Returning to his room, Charles paid an obscene sum to ring a phone in an apartment that was, by car, eighteen hours distant - so that he could say obscene things and reduce the man who answered to a whimpering mess. 

“Awful late, Major,” were the first words Klinger spoke into his ear. “Thought you might make me wait ‘til tomorrow.” 

Charles thought about reminding him that he could call  _ him _ and reverse the charges, but it was a moot point. After tonight, he wouldn’t  _ need _ to call. “Do you make a conscious effort, pet, to sound so sweet for me? If you spoke in this delectable manner during your time as a clerk, I now quite understand your success at obtaining whatever you wanted.” 

Maxwell sighed in his ear - soft, sleepy, young. It was going to be quite the scandal, Charles thought, and he couldn’t have been happier. “I’ve got nothing on you, baby. Even your insults used ta give me goosebumps!” 

Charles knew; in the early days of their flirtations, he’d watched Max’s dark eyes go darker yet, saw his knees knock under his skirts - and experimented for all he was worth to see what words worked best. The drawn out As that took the place of the “ar” sound pronounced by others seemed to have a singular effect; Charles doubted anyone else on Earth had a lover who got positively hot at the phrase “ahh-tichoke h-ahts!” 

“I can feel you smiling about something,” Klinger confided over the wires. “Thinking about your victory tomorrow?”

“Thinking about your mouth, the sound of you asking for more of me.” 

A soft moan answered. “Half the reason I said yes to Boston is to stop you calling and getting me all worked up, you know. I sewed all day - my hands are  _ tired _ .” 

“Tomorrow, I promise you that your hands will be relieved for as long as you wish them to be. You won’t even have to touch me.”  _ Watching you, knowing you’re in my world, in my bed, will be enough.  _

“Nice that you think I have that kind of self control, Major.”

“You controlled yourself very well for… what? Six weeks?”

“Seven. You didn’t.”

“Those, ah,  _ chance _ touches were nothing more than gestures of goodwill… camaraderie.” 

“Uh-huh. Camaraderie with an enlisted man?”

“An exceptional, plucky, pretty one - yes.”

“You touched  _ my hair _ , sir.”

“On the way to your neck, only. You were  _ dressed _ for touching. Am I to be blamed that your colleagues were so imbecilic or so blind that they failed to notice and do so?”

Klinger shivered at the conviction in his tone. Charles believed what he was saying. “First off, I wore different stuff every day. Second, if anybody else had gone and touched me for anything but strict medical reasons, you would’ve challenged them to a duel.” 

“I did want to be a knight you know. As a boy. I thought it was an, ah, a career. So, yes, I suppose I would fight for you if the need arose - and win.” He sobered then, thinking of the next day’s battlefield. “Darling, are you certain you wish to stand beside me tomorrow? We can change the ticket.” 

“Major, I got through snipers, donating blood every twelve hours, and a whole bunch of other awful stuff in Korea. A dinner party’s not gonna do me in.” 

“They will try to torture you, though. It will be just you and me and Honoria against the world.”

“The world better watch itself then.” The man sounded veritably  _ snuggly _ . Charles longed to feel that slight form in his arms, muscled, wiry, but delicate for all that, to see that dark head bird-bowed under his chin. 

“I admire your bravery, but do stick close.”

“Like a corsage on your wrist, Major. You’re not worried they’ll break us up, are you?”

“The best legal minds on two continents assure me that they cannot.” 

“Then what’s one night? We’ve got the rest of our lives.”

Charles felt his heart kickstart as if to soar straight out of his throat and into the stars.  _ A new constellation _ ? he mused, feeling poetic.  _ Maxwell’s Prize, they will have to name it. A star for all star-crossed lovers to wish upon.  _ “You do know, darling, that all these legalities… half of the reason I insisted upon them is, ah, my fear that I might lose you.”

Klinger grew solemn. “I know that, Charles.” They’d walked this bleak road before. But he put a smile into his voice to say, “Gimme time. I’ll convince you that there’s nothing to worry about.”

Charles could easily envision those laughing eyes looking up into his. Klinger did have a singular knack for persuasion (he was better at it, even, than Honoria, to whom Charles had always been a willing, loving servant); his latest scheme involved reenacting - indeed, reinventing - scenes from their early days in Korea. Charles was pretty sure Max just had a thing for his dress scarf… and destroying military-issue clothing in as pleasing a manner as possible. 

“I did say we’d end up in Boston,” Klinger reminded him. “The first time we went to bed together. Remember?” 

Charles made a disbelieving sound at him. “ _ Remember!?  _ Darling, I  _ dream _ about it. Sometimes even when I am asleep. And I believe that I must be excused for failing to take you seriously because you were half out of your pretty little head with, ah, well…” 

“You got me good, Major, yeah.”

Charles preened a little. “Twice.” 

“And again in the morning. Not bad for a first go round.” 

“You might have clued me in to precisely how  _ much _ of a first it was before…”

“The things you still can’t say are pretty cute, Major. What would you have done differently if you’d known?” 

He was really blushing now, remembering. “ _ Slowed down. _ ” 

“Took it as a compliment. A surgeon’s hands shaking over  _ me _ ? Knew I had to be doing something right.” 

“Maxwell, my hands  _ do not shake _ .” 

“Then how come the buttons and zippers were all mine to undo?”

Charles ground his teeth; he never won this game. “Because it was, ah, rather a… a … delight … to observe you… ah,”

Klinger spoke up just to spare him (even though he suspected that Charles counterfeited some of his shyness just to turn him on). “You liked watching me take your clothes off, huh?” 

“So much.” 

Klinger laughed and rolled lazily side to side, phone to his ear. “Thanks, Charles. You don’t usually give in that easy.”

“Some things are, ah, simply true. To deny them, even for the pleasure that results from our verbal jousts, would be wrong.” 

“I promise to slowly remove every single piece of your outfit tomorrow after your stupid party.”

“Slowly? Don’t make promises you can’t keep, love.”

“I’ll do the best I can.” 

“I promise to make it worth your efforts, whether you manage to restrain your pretty self or not.” 

“You want me restrained, Major baby,  _ you _ do it. You’re the one who knows all those sailing knots.”

“Careful, Maxwell. Give me power like that and I may never release you.”

“Don’t want you to. Said yes to your proposal, didn’t I?”

“I believe so. I, ah, I may have blacked out a minute - the joy, you know.” 

“I remember. I resuscitated you.”

“ _ That _ was not resuscitation, beautiful.” 

“Perked you right back up, though. Like you are now, huh?” 

“As I am every time I see, hear, taste, smell, or envision you, beloved.” 

“And you  _ want  _ to move me in? You’ll never get anything done.” 

“You shall be my working week and my weekend rest, Maxwell, even if you could do far, far better than me.” 

“Better than a Winchester? What would that be, sir? A Rockefeller? A British royal?” 

“You would look breathtaking in a crown.”

“Get me one then,” Max teased. 

“For tomorrow I think. Tulip poplars and Mayflowers in your hair. And then the ruined petals in our sheets.”

“I can’t wait to sleep next to you again. Those slumber parties…” 

Charles laughed at the term. They had originally been forced into sharing a bed because of fuel regulations, but, to their shared surprise, they’d really had a blast snuggling up together, bantering back and forth. 

“I worried so much about you in the cold,” Charles confided. 

“You unzipped your jacket so I could put my hands inside,” Klinger remembered. “That’s when I knew you were mine.”

Charles closed his eyes to inhabit the memory. “You, ah, you unzipped  _ other _ things as I recall… but your hands were anything but cold.” He’d gone wild for those calloused fingers, had vowed to learn every scar and line. He hadn’t been able to believe the pure  _ want _ in Klinger’s eyes, in his touch, the way he accepted every part of him - the rounded belly, his thin hair - with loud, happy enthusiasm. 

_ You said yes - yes, yes, yes - to  _ **_everything_ ** _! You trusted me even when I was just guessing and feeling my way. You never let me get lost. “That’s so good, Major,” you’d tell me. “Just there. Just like that.” And you telling me, guiding me, made me brave enough to ask you for things I never thought anyone would give me… would want to give me.  _

“I don’t miss Korea for a minute,” his young love said into his ear, “but you sure made tents sexy, Major.”

“It wasn’t me, Maxwell. You made me better… made what we had - crude as our surroundings were - beautiful with your smile and your eyes and the fabric flowers in your hair. I have never felt so well, so handsome, as when I began to touch you.”

“You’re saying I rubbed off on you, Major?” 

_ Like luck.  _ “Mmh-hmm. The warmth and sparkle of you is still with me, still dazzling me.” He thought of the gold band he was so eager to wear, sun-sheen metal warmed by skin. 

“Can I tell you about a time you really turned my head?” 

“Are you asking my  _ permission _ to flatter me?” 

“You get shy sometimes. I only like to make you blush when I can see it.”  _ And see it spread - pink and white - over your chest, the tops of your hands…  _

Charles knew that Max’s eyes were  _ very  _ dark; he could hear it in his voice. “Tell me, beautiful. I will endure any bashfulness that arises.” 

“You remember when you played bridge with the Colonel?”

“I do. I think between them, the Colonel, Margaret, and Hunnicutt called me every rotten thing one could imagine!”

Maxwell chuckled softly and chose not to remind his lover that he’d been applying some choice phrases to their friends, too, more than repaying their teasing treatment. “I wanted you to pick me,” he reminded Charles, “to partner with you.” 

The words made him strangely shivery. “I… I regret not making you my partner in all things from the very first moment I met you, Max.” 

“Not trying to guilt you, Major baby,” Max soothed. “You didn’t know it, but the Colonel knew how I felt about you from the get go. He’d see me get all shaky and use that calm-down voice like he has for Sophie, remember that? He told me to wear flats ‘til I got used to you, so I wouldn’t break off any more heels.” 

“You broke a  _ heel _ over me?” He hadn’t noticed at the time, but it was a flattering notion. He imagined it: his sweet girl navigating the camp dust, shoes in hand, expression disappointed and a little lost. Their eyes would meet and he could say something about what a pity it was that Klinger was ruining his nylons and clever Max would say something about the pain it was to hand wash such things and he could offer to help… which would lead to kissing the back of his neck for sure, making him lose his hold on the wet delicates so that Charles could lay him down and make the delicates he was  _ wearing  _ damp with his admiring mouth… 

“More than one. I wanted to look at your eyes and back then, even if you were looking down on us, you kinda had your nose in the air, sir. I couldn’t watch your pretty eyes and watch where I was going.” 

“I am grateful you chose the former.”

“Well, here’s the thing, Colonel Potter  _ knew  _ how I felt about you. And you were all, um…” he wished he had the words Charles would understand, “excited about winning, right? Your eyes were flashing. You were saying all that fancy stuff that, uh, gets to me,”

Charles smiled; he hadn’t been paying attention to Klinger during he and Potter’s so-called “grudge match,” but he wished he had; even after years of surgery, he still counted it a fine medical feat to dilate the pretty thing’s pupils with only his voice! 

“And nobody would have cared,” Klinger went on, “if I sat on your lap. Section 8, remember?”

_ Oh, darling, I would have  _ **_cared_ ** _ \- for you, for you for the rest of my life _ . 

“I would have much preferred that to Houlihan squawking when the toes of our shoes brushed,” Charles said, but the warmth in the words gave him away. 

“You  _ were _ cheating, sir,” Klinger teased. He  _ was _ grateful Margaret had never really set her cap for Charles. He doubted it would have worked, but courting the Major had been hard enough without another officer in the mix. 

“I was trying to,” Charles agreed. “You, at least, would have picked up on my cues.” From the earliest days of their friendship, Klinger had read him easily. He had begun bantering with the pretty thing just to keep him distracted from all that he felt. 

“Baby, I would have picked up on more than just cards.” 

“Hearts,” Charles murmured right into his ear. 

“Yours and mine, baby. They belong together.” 

And joined, Charles knew they could face anything. 

*** 

The dress that Maxwell wore that night was so elaborate that it deserved to have new fairy tales written for its folds. The moment Charles saw it, he vowed to find a museum quality display case to preserve it. More delicately pink than Charles’ lips, it was covered in white roses that looked real enough to pluck. Charles wanted to bury his head in the dress’s folds and breath in their English tea garden smell. 

“Dear girl, I knew you had been working hard, but if you have acquired magic enough to adorn your dresses with living flowers, I fear I will lose you to the Paris fashion circuit.” 

“You can’t lose me, Major.” 

But, when he made this promise, Max hadn’t appreciated what he was facing. The digs were endless, educated, and deep. He’d expected this from the Winchester clan (though Honoria supported him as best she could), but Charles’ former colleagues, members of that upper crust world, were just as bad. Even the man’s former secretary managed a dig, suggesting that she had once spent  _ plenty  _ of time in the Major’s lap. After an hour, his cheeks were brighter than his dress and he silently reminded himself that if he stayed true, if he endured, then he got Charles for good. 

_ You lived through Korea,  _ he reminded himself.  _ You can survive this _ . 

He did survive - even the toasts that celebrated Charles as a war hero, something Charles hated, he knew, and he survived, too, the pain in Charles’ voice when he rose to thank his guests. That beautiful voice held them all spellbound as Charles detailed the hell of Korea, his loneliness and despair, the realization that his family had abandoned him there because he was too old and too intelligent for them to name him incompetent and dump him in an asylum. He spoke of their abuse, this family, and Maxwell had to hold onto Honoria’s elbow when she learned the details. He had thought that the Winchesters might lose both children this night and he could conjure no pity.  _ You should have taken better care of them. You shoulda left them on someone’s doorsteps like kittens. They would have been better off.  _

“But I would like to thank you, all of you, for that time. As horrific as it was, as much as fear gripped me, as little as each day was promised, it gave me something that I will cherish for the rest of my days, something that allowed me to leave Korea alive.” He announced his plan then, ended with, “This is now my home again, mine and my sister’s and the home of the great love of my life. We do thank you all for coming to celebrate my continued existence, vexing as some of you find it, and now we will say goodnight.” 

Things cleared out very quickly after that. 

Shaky, blinking back tears, Maxwell entered Charles’ arms. “Hey,” he said, eternally good-natured, “at least we have lots of leftover cake.” 

“I know how you feel about cake.” 

“Do you know how I feel about you?”

Charles drew out a handkerchief and dabbed at Klinger’s eyes. “I have an idea, yes. I am sorry, beloved, for all they forced you to endure, but I am grateful that you stood beside me. Your beauty has always been the best pain killer I have ever held on my tongue.” 

“You think my face is a mess because of what they said to  _ me _ , Major?”

“Maxwell, I just announced you as my husband and wife before all of Boston society and a goodly amount of New York, too. Do you suppose you could begin calling me by name at some point?” 

“If I do that,  _ Major _ , you’ll get used to it and it won’t be as fun. But what I  _ was _ saying was that I’m from Toledo, I can take it. I wore dresses in  _ pool halls _ . It was the stuff they said about you that got to me.”

“I did not hear a word of it, Max.”

Klinger gripped his shoulders, searched his eyes. The Major was serious. “How…?” he whispered. He had been so worried about his dear one, so shaken by the old hatreds he had seen paraded tonight at what had been intended as a celebration. 

“It is a magnificent dress, Max. I just kept my eyes on you.” 

It was not over, not completely. Klinger knew that the Winchesters would offer him money to drop Charles’ hand. The way he held it now told Charles that he never ever would. 

End! 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
